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Aristocracy (from Ancient Greek ἀριστοκρατίᾱ (aristokratíā) 'rule of the best'; from ἄριστος (áristos) 'best' and κράτος (krátos) 'power, strength') is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats.
A noble house is an aristocratic family or kinship group, either currently or historically of national or international significance [clarification needed], and usually associated with one or more hereditary titles, the most senior of which will be held by the "Head of the House" or patriarch.
The aristocracy [1] is historically associated with a "hereditary" or a "ruling" social class. In many states, the aristocracy included the upper class of people (aristocrats) with hereditary rank and titles. [2] In some, such as ancient Greece, ancient Rome, or India, aristocratic status came from belonging to a military class. It has also ...
Term Description Examples Autocracy: Autocracy is a system of government in which supreme power (social and political) is concentrated in the hands of one person or polity, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perhaps for the implicit threat of a coup d'état or mass insurrection).
The bestowal of noble and aristocratic titles was widespread across the empire even after its fall by independent monarchs. One of the most elaborate examples is that of the Egyptian aristocracy's largest clan, the Abaza family, of maternal Abazin and Circassian origin. [26] [27] [28] [29]
For example, impressive burial mounds could consolidate imaginations of a clan's right to an area. The bronze aristocracy is known primarily through burial mounds, for example a mound (c. 1200 BC) in Jåsund, Western Norway, where an apparently mighty man was buried together with a big bronze sword. Other mounds were filled with bronze weapons ...
The natural aristocracy is a concept developed by Thomas Jefferson in 1813 which describes a political elite that derives its power from talent and virtue (or merit). He distinguishes this from traditional aristocracies, which he refers to as the artificial aristocracy, a ruling elite that derives its power solely from inherited status, or wealth and birth.
The historian David Crouch defined baron as "the greatest men in the aristocracy (whether they were earls, barons or not), men habitually at court, lords of great estates, those indeed whom the king consulted in the affairs of the realm". [22] The fiefs of earls and barons were called "honours". The honours were not compact territorial units.